Vardis Fisher
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Vardis Alvero Fisher (born March 31, 1895, in Annis, Idaho – died July 9, 1968, in Hagerman, Idaho) was a writer best known for historical novels of the old West and the monumental 12-volume Testament of Man series of novels, depicting the history of humans from cave to civilization.
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[edit] Life and works
Fisher's novel, Mountain Man (1965), was the basis for Sydney Pollack's film, Jeremiah Johnson, nominated for a Golden Palm award at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. The Mothers: An American Saga of Courage told the story of the Donner Party tragedy. His historical novel, Children of God, tracing the history of the Mormons, won the 1939 Harper Prize in Fiction. Tale of Valor is a novel recounting the Lewis and Clark Expedition. God or Caesar? is his non-fiction book on how to write.
Fisher was born near present-day Rigby, Idaho. After graduating from the University of Utah in 1920, Fisher acquired a Master of Arts degree (1922) and a Ph.D. (1925) at the University of Chicago. He was an assistant professor of English at the University of Utah (1925-1928) and at New York University (1928-1931), where he was friends with Thomas Wolfe. He also taught as a summer professor at Montana State University (1932-1933). Between 1935 and 1939, he was the director of the Idaho Writer's Project of the WPA, writing several books about Idaho. He was also a newspaper columnist for the Idaho Statesman and Idaho Statewide (which later became the Intermountain Observer).
One of his hobbies was house construction, and he built his own home in the Thousand Springs area near Hagerman, Idaho. He did the wiring, masonry, carpentry and plumbing himself. His father Joe, a hunter, had a working relationship with the Blackfeet Indians of the area.
Fisher had one child with his wife, Leona McMurtrey, who was born September 10, 1917 and died September 8, 1924. He married his second wife, Margaret Trusler, in 1928. He married his third wife, Opal Laurel Holmes, in 1940, and she was his co-author on Gold Rushes and Mining Camps of the Early American West (1968). Opal Fisher died in 1995, leaving $237,000 from her estate to the University of Idaho for the creation of a humanities professorship.
To write the Testament of Man series, Fisher read over 2,000 books on anthropology, history, psychology, theology and comparative religion. When the series was reprinted by Pyramid Books as mass-market paperbacks in 1960, it had an influence on DC Comics editor Joe Orlando and the comic book Anthro, written and drawn by Howard Post and edited by Orlando.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Novels
- Pemmican: A Novel of the Hudson's Bay Company (1956)
- Children of God
- Mountain Man: A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American West (1965)
- The Mothers: An American Saga of Courage (1943)
- Toilers of the Hills
- Dark Bridwell
- April: A Fable of Love
- Forgive Us Our Virtues
- City of Illusion
- Tale of Valor
- Vridar Hunter tetralogy:
- In Tragic Life
- Passions Spin the Plot
- We Are Betrayed
- No Villain Need Be
- Testament of Man series:
- Darkness and the Deep (1943)
- The Golden Rooms (1944)
- Intimations of Eve (1946)
- Adam and the Serpent (1947)
- The Divine Passion
- The Valley of Vision
- The Island of the Innocent
- Jesus Came Again: A Parable
[edit] Short stories
- "Love or Death"
[edit] Non-fiction
- The Neuotic Nightingale
- God or Caesar?
- Suicide or Murder?
- Thomas Wolfe As I Knew Him
[edit] References
- Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 115.
